‘Bates Motel’ Teaser: Creepy Motherly Love

We’ve already featured couple of teasers and a full trailer for A&E’s intriguing new series Bates Motel, a story that takes Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho characters Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) and puts them in a contemporary setting, running a small motel.

Now a new teaser has emerged that hints at the strange loving relationship between Bates and his mother, complete with a proclamation of love, and one creepy look from Highmore. It’s simple and short, but it seems to capture the spirit of the new series as we’ve seen from the previous trailers.

In the series, Norma Bates buys a motel on the outskirts of an idyllic coastal town seeking a fresh start with her teenage son, the handsome and shy Norman. However, it sounds like not all the creepiness from Bates Motel will come from the titular family. Executive producer Carlton Cuse has said, “This town looks really beautiful on the outside, but underneath it is something very dark and malevolent.” What could be more malevolent than what the Bates family became in Hitchcock’s Psycho?

It’s important to note that this series isn’t just a remake of Hitchcock’s classic horror film set in a contemporary time, and that should make for a pretty original story with familiar elements for Psycho fans. The real drawing power seems to be seeing how Highmore will slowly transform from a young, sweet boy into the monster that we know as Norman Bates.

After all, the full trailer hints at several violent acts, including murder and capture, but we’re not sure if this is because of the teenage Bates or not. Filling the shoes of Hitchcock, even on TV, will be no easy task. The man was called the Master of Suspense – and nowadays, shows with this kind of tone show too much and don’t know how to build genuine tension without using cheap scares and an orchestral rise to spook viewers. At least this new series has great production value and a promising cast to make it worth a gander.